Geelong outclass Fremantle on a hot day at Kardinia Park

Bailey Smith arrived at the cattery on Saturday afternoon as Geelong smashed the fancied dockers by a massive 78 points. Smith in his debut game had 32 disposals and a goal to lead the match as the leading disposal getter from either team

Geelong started the match on fire with a goal of the year contender already from small forward Gryan Miers from deep in the pocket before Andrew Brayshaw replied with a goal of his own but Geelong continued to dominate the rest of the quarter leading by 27 points at quarter time. Goals from Dangerfield, Dempsey, Bowes and Ollie Henry got them to that lead in the hot weather at Kardinia Park.

It was during the second quarter that completely broke the game open with Geelong’s small forwards in particular Tyson Stengle tearing apart the tall Dockers defence. Stengle himself kicked 2 goals of his own during the second quarter and set up Jeremy Cameron’s goal late in the second term. Despite the tall Fremantle defence, Swerve Media’s Adem Savran asked Andy Brayshaw if the size of the defence was a concern but Brayshaw put the blame on the mids as they ‘were able to come out too easily out of the middle’. as a result of Geelong taking the game away from Fremantle during the second quarter. At half time the cats lead by 9 goals, 12.4 (76) to 3.4 (22).

During the third quarter the Dockers gave somewhat of a fightback largely thanks to debutant Murphy Reid who miraculously kicked 4 goals in the space of 10 minutes and kicked 6.5 to 1.2 to bring the game back to 21 points at 3 quarter time. Goals from Bailey Banfield and Michael Frederick also helped get the dockers to a competitive margin to at least give them a chance in the final quarter.

In the final quarter though the Cats just took advantage of the clearly tired dockers team kicking 10 goals to one in the last quarter with 3 of them coming from experienced spearhead Jeremy Cameron. Incredibly the Cats kicked 7 goals in the last 8 minutes of the match as the dockers midfield were unable to physically keep up with the cats.

Geelong as a team lead Fremantle in a lot of the statistics in particular Kicks 247 to 183 while Fremantle lead in handballs 178 to 113 which showed the different styles of game each team played as well as marks which Geelong lead 110-55

Final Score

GEELONG                    5.4    12.4    13.6   23.9 (147)

FREMANTLE                1.1    3.4      9.9     10.9 (69)

GOALS 

Geelong: Cameron 4, Stengle 3, O.Henry 3, Holmes 2, Dangerfield 2, Dempsey 2, Miers, Bowes, Close, Atkins, Neale, Smith, De Koning

Fremantle: Reid 4, Frederick 2, Brayshaw, Treacy, Banfield, Cox

BEST 

Geelong: Smith, Dangerfield, Humphries, De Koning, Stengle, Holmes

Fremantle: Johnson, Reid, Brayshaw, O'Meara

Crowd

25,372 at GMHBA Stadium.